


Soul and Spring

by TheThirteenthHour



Series: Memorable: A Collection of Short Zelink Works [5]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: F/M, Skinny Dipping, Soulmates, Tenderness, implied by the triforce, it's not really sexual but zelda is rediscovering a little pent-up thirst after a hundred years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22205260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheThirteenthHour/pseuds/TheThirteenthHour
Summary: “You’re bathing in the Spring of Power,” she says, smiling because it’s ridiculous and feral behavior, and part of her wonders with glee about it all. “You’reswimming nakedin a sacred place.”He gives her a devilish grin that stokes a small flame inside her and proudly says, “Fuck Ganon.”
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Series: Memorable: A Collection of Short Zelink Works [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1457581
Comments: 54
Kudos: 219
Collections: Goldsmith's favorites





	Soul and Spring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aurea (aureafolia)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aureafolia/gifts).



> Wouldn't have written this without you. 💙

The Spring of Power is oppressive.

It isn’t the heat. Death Mountain looms over them, hidden behind the rock walls of the spring, but its presence isn’t what causes Zelda to hesitate at the spring’s entrance. She draws her horse Epona—white-haired and golden-maned—to a stop. Just as her soul continually reminds her that Epona looks wrong, so too does it inform her that neither she nor Link belongs here.

“Do you feel that?” she whispers. She can’t remember if she felt this a hundred years ago, pleading for the goddess to hear her.

Link trots up to her on his horse and unsheathes the Master Sword. His eyes scan the ridge and the Goddess Statue, and finally land on her with the same wariness that curdles in her stomach.

“Did—” she starts. He may not remember how it felt to guard her here all those years ago, but he has been here since awakening. He escaped to this spring once, blindly seeking refuge from a lynel that had just killed him. She glances at his stomach. The scar is hidden by the tunic she made for him. “Did you feel that as well? Whenever you returned here?”

He nods.

She searches his expression, but she doesn’t know what for. Comfort, perhaps, because when she returns her gaze to the statue, she finds herself wanting to seek his eyes again.

After a hundred years of sealing Ganon away, she can’t mistake this weight for anything else. She knows the beast’s presence like the back of her hand, and the Spring of Power reeks of it.

They’re here because of Ganon. There are things she learned—remembered, perhaps, and maybe even forgot like a dream—over the past century. Power, courage, and wisdom. These aspects are intrinsic to the three of them, but by a design she doesn’t understand.

How cruel fate was, to destroy nearly everyone and everything she loved the day she was permitted to set foot in the Spring of Wisdom.

She climbs off Epona, steps to the edge of the water, and waits—for a revelation, for a memory, for the Sword to speak to her once again. Her power has laid dormant for months now, perhaps never to return. But Nayru’s wisdom is supposed to be with her always, just like Link’s courage. Just like Ganon’s power. Always and forever, as with the heroes and princesses and demons of old, less legend than she once thought.

Her soul aches for past lifetimes she has only recently suspected. If Ganon truly gave up on reincarnation to assume his bestial form, she fears what that means for her and Link.

She takes a sharp breath. “These statues have never been of any use to me…”

Link looks at her over his shoulder, eyes a little wide and innocent.

She smiles. “Oh, I know the goddess has aided you many times. You _are_ her chosen hero.” _My chosen hero_ , she considers saying.

She wonders just how deeply her ties to Link go, because his gaze softens like he knows what she’s thinking.

She looks away, feeling vulnerable. “Would you mind if we rested here for a while? Tarrey Town is still quite a ways away.” And for all the weight in the air, the Spring of Power may provide her with the answers she seeks. She wants to confirm whether or not Ganon still remains, when her soul feels disturbed at its core, as though her duty is not yet complete.

She wants to ensure that this isn’t her final life with Link. 

Link agrees to staying here, but he begins to make his way toward the entrance of the shrine.

“I said _rest_ , Link. We encountered nothing on our way here, surely you can just relax with me for a bit.”

It takes some thought, but he sheathes the Sword with a bashful smile and joins her.

She sits at the edge of the spring while Link rummages through their supplies for a snack. The water threatens to run over the stone, cool and inviting amidst the muggy air. She almost asks Link if he thinks it would be disrespectful to soak her feet, but she thinks better of it. This spring is linked to Ganon, after all, and the goddess has never come to her when called. She removes her boots and dips her legs in. The water is refreshing and tempting.

Link hands her a few wildberries and follows her lead, though he doesn’t hesitate to put his legs in the water.

“There’s a beach not too far from here, no?” she asks. “Perhaps we should go soon. It’s been too long since I last went swimming.”

He nods, plucks a berry into his mouth, and lies back on the stone with his eyes shut and his arms splayed out. The Master Sword rests just out of his reach.

She smiles. She almost joins him, but her soul feels too restless. Strange, she thinks, to fear that she may no longer have him at her side in her next life, but to be unable to lie beside him while she still has him.

She eats her berries and thinks. She isn’t ready to return to the castle, but she has put it off long enough. The answers she seeks on the calamity and Ganon, on herself and Link, must lie there.

The sun crawls over them. If not for the spring, the heat would be unbearable, and even then, they ought to move into the shade.

Link groans suddenly and sits up with a bleary expression, frowning petulantly at the spring. Zelda nearly laughs, but the sunlight stops her. The way it dapples his face and hair with gold, setting him alight like the clouds…

The moments when she most acutely remembers what he is, _Hyrule’s_ Hero and servant, are small and inconsequential. It isn’t when he wields the Master Sword astride a horse. It isn’t when he slays a beast or when he is at his most violent.

It’s when he sleeps. It’s when the world grants him a moment of peace. When the heavens shine on his face like he is otherworldly, precious and invaluable and in need of protection.

She reaches for him, to hold his wrist and promise that one day he will no longer need to fight, that his life will be his and his alone—though she aches at the thought of separating her life from his.

But he yawns and stretches his arms overhead, and she loses the nerve to say or do anything.

He dips his hands in the water, chews on another berry, and removes his tunic.

She makes a sound. She doesn’t know what kind of sound it is beyond strangled and confused, but she makes it. He regards her with a confused look, clothing hanging off his fingers, and she turns away so quickly it hurts her neck. “Wh— Uh, wh-what are you… doing?”

The next second of silence is almost unbearable.

“It’s hot,” he answers quietly. “And the water’s nice.”

She looks at him carefully, feeling, somehow, like she’s intruding on his privacy. He watches her like it’s the most natural thing to undress in front of her, reminding her that it isn’t as though she hasn’t seen him bare-chested before. She’s treated more of his wounds than she can count. “You’re just… going to swim here.”

He shrugs. “Swim, bathe,” he says, like there’s no difference. After all his lonesome traveling, maybe there isn’t.

Her heart quickens. “I see.”

He furrows his brow, but he looks guilty. “Is that not okay?”

“N-no, no, I…” She glances away. “You simply caught me off guard. Undressing, so suddenly.”

He watches her for a moment, and raises his eyebrows to ask if she’s sure.

She gestures to the water and averts her gaze.

She tries not to focus on the sound of rustling clothes or the splash as he steps in. She focuses on the trees, on the sunlight glinting off the water, on the muggy air and the heat between her clothes and her skin—

She frowns and wipes away a bead of sweat on her face. She shouldn’t be entertaining the thought of swimming with him.

The spring is shallow. She only remembers because he walks into her line of sight, the water just reaching his waist and only because he crouches to keep himself covered.

He lowers the rest of his body to properly swim, and she fails to stifle a nervous laugh that draws his attention. His smile is curious and delighted and not the least bit shy that he is wearing nothing but water.

Yes, a glance to his pile of clothing confirms he is wearing nothing.

“You’re bathing in the Spring of Power,” she says, smiling because it’s ridiculous and feral behavior, and part of her wonders with glee about it all. “You’re _swimming naked_ in a sacred place.”

He gives her a devilish grin that stokes a small flame inside her and proudly says, “Fuck Ganon.”

She laughs freely.

She tries not to watch as he swims, but it’s difficult not to appreciate the glisten on his shoulders and back. He’s a strong swimmer, relying mostly on his arms so he can keep his waist below the surface. She doesn’t look into the water, but she fails not to wonder how he looks beneath it.

She bats the thought away every time it comes, but she also wonders how it might feel to join him.

She could, if she wanted. Considering how easily he stripped down standing right next to her, he wouldn’t have an issue with her doing the same. There is little he would deny her, anyway. And as for the spring, it isn’t as though Ganon nor the goddess hasn’t scourged them in the past.

She dips her hands in the water. She would be crossing a threshold with him, but the prospect makes her nerves more excited than anxious. She yearns for the closeness as though she misses it, as though this wouldn’t be the first time they’ve done something like this.

There is little point in wondering if they can ensure that they stay at each other’s side for all eternity, if Ganon’s persistent malice is the only thing that unfailingly binds them. But that question floats through her thoughts, and it empowers her to ask, “Would you… mind if I joined you?”

Link freezes.

She feels like a fool for saying anything. “I— It’s just… um, humid…”

He makes some strange motion that she can’t bear to watch and swims behind the Goddess Statue. After a moment, he gives her a thumbs up, the rest of him fully hidden by stone.

“Oh,” she breathes. It takes a moment to settle her nerves before she stands. She calls out, “You’re not allowed to look,” in the hopes of dissipating them, but she hears him plunk his entire body underwater and remembers all the times Mipha and fairies saved him from drowning.

She shakes those memories off.

She undresses quickly, wary of the possibility of someone watching from the ridge and eager to get in the water. Yet, she delays herself, hanging her pants over a branch so the legs can dry, neatly folding the rest of her clothes, twisting her hair over her chest and being grateful for the coverage it offers her.

If she has done this with him in a past life, it certainly doesn’t stop it from feeling brand new.

She shudders at the chill of the water, refreshing as it is, and isn’t sure what to make of this. She wonders lightly what the gossip mongers would say, what her father would think, that she would not only step into a holy spring wearing nothing but her hair, but that she would do so with the company of her knight.

She smiles to herself. Perhaps her past selves had something of a rebellious streak as well.

She kneels so the water comes up to her neck and pulls her hair back over her chest. “Okay. You can come back out now.”

He emerges slowly from behind the statue, careful not to look directly at her for more than a moment.

She can’t help the giggle that bubbles out of her. “Have you… done this before? I, um, with another person, I suppose.”

He stops a fair distance away and shakes his head, glancing aside and back again.

His nervousness is endearing. “Well, good. I’m not the only one that this is new to.”

His smile is familiar in a dreamy way, like it’s been lifetimes since she last saw it. He tries to hide it, lowering his head and looking away, so bashful that she feels responsible for how he suppressed his emotions a century ago. He never would have given away even a hint of embarrassment or anything of the like. For a moment, she thinks things might be better now, all that pressure and all those expectations lifted from his shoulders. But shame washes over her. As if she has the right to think such things.

She takes a shaky breath. “Link,” she starts before she knows what she’s going to say.

He looks at her expectantly, and she realizes that it’s an apology that sits on her lips, one that he’ll never accept. He refuses to let her take blame for what happened one hundred years ago.

She busies herself with her hair, scrambling for something else to say. “Um… Are you… comfortable? N-not necessarily with _this_ —a-although, I hope you are, I just… I'm… I meant, you know, in general. With me. I-if only because, I often feel like you’ve… always been with me. And it’s difficult to think of a time when that wasn’t the case.”

She braids and unbraids a stand of hair as she waits for a response, and finally glances at him when she can no longer bear the weight of waiting.

He’s smiling softly. He looks away when she catches his eye, but she knows the feeling is mutual, nerves and all.

Her heart thuds. “It’s… nice, being so close to you.”

He nods.

She wonders if he’s thinking the same thing, about whether or not they should close the distance between them. “Not just figuratively,” she says quietly, hoping to prompt him.

But he would never step forward first. He is her knight, after all. Whatever she asks of him, he does, but he never imposes on her. He doesn’t even sleep beside her in his own bed without her express invitation, every single night. She appreciates it, but he should know his standing in her life better by now. Perhaps he has always been like this, a behavior lifetimes old that he will never unlearn.

She holds her hair over her chest and extends her other hand toward him.

He looks her in the eye, head still lowered, asking if she’s certain.

She smiles shyly and nods.

He places his hand in hers, calluses smoothing over her skin. He only holds tight because she twines their fingers together, only sits behind her because she tugs him close, only wraps his other arm around her waist because she places it there. She rests her upper back against his chest, takes a deep breath, and tries not to think too much about how his grip is firm but gentle.

She lets herself exist in this moment. His warmth against her, the comfort of his presence, the sunlight washing over them. She wonders how they look, perhaps like lovers out of legend, content to enjoy the peace they have finally earned for themselves.

She smiles. She never considered herself much of a romantic before.

“Is this okay?” she whispers.

He presses his cheek to her forehead and nods. The muscles in his arms and chest relax, only to tighten again as he holds her closer, like he doesn’t have enough of her and could never have enough.

Her heart swells. “I’m glad…”

She shuts her eyes. She listens to his breathing, and matches her own to the rise and fall of his chest. This is all she could ever need, and she selfishly wishes they could stay here for the rest of their lives. No kingdom, no Ganon. Just herself and Link, an eternity spent with a crucial part of her soul. But they are destined to be separated, and to find each other and fight beside each other, lifetime after lifetime.

She releases her hair to cup his cheek and hold him close. If her hair flows away from her body, so be it. “You told me you would accompany me anywhere,” she says. The night they defeated Ganon, when he kneeled before her and once again pledged his life to her, and her soul filled with such relief she hardly knew what to say. “Would you…” She knows he would agree, but it feels like such a selfish request to make. Instead, she asks, “For how long would you accompany me?”

“Always,” he says. There isn’t a pause for breath before he answers. There is no hesitation, no doubt, only such loyalty that her eyes water. She tucks her face into his neck and relishes the sound and feel of his voice as he says, “I will accompany you anywhere and forever.”

“As will I,” she whispers, voice trembling.

He squeezes her hand, raises it across her body to her shoulder, and kisses her fingers gently. It steadies her.

Here, in the warmth of his hold, at least for this moment, she believes even the goddess will not fail her when she says, “I am with you always and forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> oh I've been meaning to write this for a while, and it came out so much softer than I thought it would 😭
> 
> * * *
> 
> I do love hearing from my readers and chatting with you or answering your questions! So if you want to leave a comment and don't know what to say, please refer to the emoji legend~
> 
> \- 😭 - I agree, that was so soft...  
> \- 👏 - Link said fuck  
> \- 💕 - Extra kudos  
> \- 😍 - I loved this!  
> \- 💌 - Thanks for sharing
> 
> \- And if there's a particular line/scene you'd like a behind-the-scenes view of, drop a 📝 with the quote, or by itself and I'll pick a part to talk about!
> 
> [tumblr](https://write-nonsense-by-the-ream.tumblr.com/post/190189847188/youre-bathing-in-the-spring-of-power-she-says) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/thirteenthhr/status/1215844433893253120)
> 
> * * *
> 
> Thanks for reading! ^^


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